A Terraformer's Tale
by EgotisticalIndustries
Summary: When eezo is completely missed by humanity and they get an extra 100 years to develop, they're far more noticeable on the galactic stage. This is despite the Mass Effect side running on Over Analysis rules, and therefore being much more powerful. Add to that some culture shock, and you've got a recipe for either disaster or awesome and I'm not sure which!
1. Chapter 1

**IA IA disclaimer Fhtagn!**

**Author's note:** This is another "no-eezo" humanity. Though there will be some transhumanism involved, it will be to a significantly lesser degree than some of my other stories. In addition I'm staying with tech that is (mostly) plausible. Please note that this includes the plasma guns. Anyway, I can't be buggered to write a series of snippets from ~2020 to 2276 (first contact with the council in this story), so brace for incoming timeline. Also, this council is operating on Over Analysis rules for their tech. This means that the Council gets a lot more bang for their buck, but these Humans get a lot more Buck due to not needing to bother managing limited eezo supplies. I'm also upping the number of Mass Relays, as the Reapers probably wouldn't want any holes in their trap. I'm running with the 'intergalactic reapers' idea again, but this version's only 1,000,000 years old (20 cycles), so they only have most of the local supercluster rather than the entire universe.

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><p>2027: Commercially viable fusion is achieved. The prototype reactor is about the size of a semi-trailer and outputs 600 megawatts. For fuel it uses Deuterium-tritium mix. It is adopted slowly, due to competition from more traditional energy sources.<p>

2032: The OPEC countries economies start tanking as their reserves of fossil fuels start to run dry, in desperation they try invading their neighbors for resources. This leads to what is known as the Great Energy ClusterF***. In total this debacle leads to the premature deaths of 14,000,000 people. Before you dismiss this as 'just a number', please remember that not only were those each individuals with their own lives hopes and dreams, but so were their friends, families, and other people who would have a hard time carrying on without them.

2038: The Great Energy ClusterF*** draws to a close, the middle east is now a (mostly unified) main producer of fusion reactors, and draws a lot of their income from domestic projects.

2043: Fusion replaces fossil fuels as the main source of energy for most of the world, the shift is unnoticed by much of the general public.

2047: A large space vehicle is launched by China with the intent of landing a permanent settlement on Mars. This is done to great controversy using a 1st generation fusion torch drive. The controversy is because it sprays high-energy neutrons all over the landscape upon launch, rendering everything within 5 kilometers of the launch site unpleasantly radioactive. It arrives 1 month later, along a semi-Brachistochrone trajectory.

2053: Everyone else gets the bright idea to colonize the solar system too, but they don't want a repeat of China's _incident_ therefore fusion thermal rockets are the order of the day for lifting to orbit. This means deep-space vessels and orbital shuttles have different types of engine, and said deep-space vessels need to be assembled in orbit, which is a major pain. Still, space travel is sufficiently common and inexpensive that the average person can afford an interplanetary ticket on about a month's savings.

2059: Mars' population breaks the 1,000,000 mark, to much celebration among the inhabitants of 到来 city.  
>(Chinese for Arrival, it is a chinese-started project afterall.)<p>

2065: The first non-Mars colony opens up in the asteroid belt in an O'Neill cylinder known as موطئ قدم (arabic for foothold, produced by the New Arabian Union)

2068: As a test, self-replicating terraforming droids are sent to Venus. Each unit can produce 1 20th of another unit per week, and 100 are sent in the initial drop. These units are specially hardened to resist Venus' hazardous conditions, and form a 'hive mind' built on Machine Learning Algorithms. That last bit is important later.

Late 2070: The von-neumann replicators on Venus reach over 100,000 in number. They now have a combined processing power 100 times greater than a human brain.

Census: 2075: Total human population hits the 20,000,000,000 mark. only 12,000,000,000 are on Earth however.

2077: The ludicrous free processing power and self-improving nature of the Terraformers on Venus leads to the swarm becoming self-aware. It was not programmed with any historical banks or directives besides producing livable habitats for humans, thus leading to one of the more bizarre 'First Contact' incidents in the Galaxy as Humanity meets their 'offspring' for lack of a better word. The Swarm (identifying its species as 'Terraformer' and name as 'Tiffy') decides that part of its directive includes ensuring that there will always be worlds for Humans to settle, and that they will be able to reach them. Without further adieu Tiffy requisitions genetic templates for an Earth-like biosphere, and commences research on FTL. For all practical intents the Terraformers and Humanity are symbiotic, with the Terraformers providing Humans a place to live, and the Humans protecting the Terraformers.

2083: The Mars Republic declares its independence from Earth. Seeing as this coincides with them unveiling an interplanetary missile that makes a rather spectacular crater in Jupiter's moon Europa (seriously, they cracked it wide open revealing that yes, there IS an ocean there.), this goes through. Tiffy is sad that 'her' parents aren't getting along.

2087: Venus reaches habitability, though Garden World status is still a couple decades off. Tiffy gleefully invites colonists to move in, and requests permission to seed a new Terraformer on mars. Permission is granted.

2089: The Jovian League is founded. It is composed of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. The initial colonists are a batch of roughly 500,000,000

2091: Due to improved computing methods, the Mars Terraformer reaches self-awareness with a mere 1,200 units. It takes the name Cooner

2095: As a joint project between Tiffy and her colonists, an improved method of fusion is developed that uses pure Deuterium for fuel instead of the D-T or He3 fuels that have previously been used. This means that fuel availability and eco-friendliness is greatly improved over previous models. This allows the use of fusion torch engines at ground level.

CENSUS: 2100: 40,000,000 humans (13,000,000,000 on Earth), 2 Terraformer Minds

2106: Seeing the success of the Terraformer Minds, the growing Asteroid Belt Nation decides to make their habitats into Genius Loci in a similar manner to Terraformer minds. Not wanting to bind the new being to eventual obsolescence, it is designed with a compartmentalized brain, so that new processing cores can replace the old as time goes on. The new mind comes online with the New Ceres habitat. 'He' takes the name Quirt, when asked why he states "It's the only thing that wasn't taken". In other news, Venus achieves Garden World status, prompting a flood of new immigrants.

2109: Tiffy begins constructing an antimatter factory in low solar orbit, the reason for this is that the theory for the drive she's trying to produce is apparently sound, but needs more energy to work. A lot more.

2113: The newly founded Jovian League begins to splinter, the generally accepted reasoning for this is that they tried to live in too much volume with nowhere near enough people, and ideological differences began building up between even single individuals at an alarming rate. In addition the name 'Jovian' implied to some degree that the inhabitants of Saturn and Uranus were inferior. At least to the inhabitants of Saturn and Uranus.

2117: The First Interplanetary War kicks off when Saturn fires interplanetary missiles at Jupiter's habitats. As those missiles went through the inner system on the way over there, missing both of Sol's Garden Worlds by scant light seconds, the Terraformers decide to intervene.

2120: The First Interplanetary War comes to an abrupt end as each of the gas giants that used to be the Jovian League is forcibly made to stop shooting at each other by Terraformer forces and subsequently told to consider each other separate political entities for the foreseeable future.

CENSUS: 2125: 74,000,000,000 humans (8,000,000,000 on Earth, most of those moved to Venus), 2 Terraformer Minds, 189 Habitat Minds, 1 Antimatter Factory Manager intelligence

2128: Computers get good enough to simulate an entire Human brain in real time in a package only negligibly larger than said brain. In addition a method for a gradual upload (taking about a week to complete, and preserving continuity despite destroying the original organic brain) is developed, courtesy of Cooner. Uploading becomes popular on Mars, Earth and Venus in rather short order, though most uploads stick with having their cybernetic brains stay in their organic bodies for the time being.

2131: Using antimatter from the completed Antimatter Factory, a slower-than-light colony expedition is launched to Alpha Centauri at 0.3 c. It is projected to arrive in about 13 years, and carries an O'Neill cylinder complete with industrial base.

2136: As a consequence of someone mixing up a live nuke with one of the training duds during wargames, Admiral Yaqub Kees Aarden (from the merger of an Arabian and a Dutch family) and all aboard his flagship of the ABN are killed during wargames. This tragedy is both mourned across the ABN, and heavily investigated. The event was eventually 'determined' to have been sabotage on the part of the New Jupiter Dominion, kicking off the Second Interplanetary War.

2137: The Second Interplanetary War goes well for the people of Jupiter at first due to them still having lots of old war materiel from the First Interplanetary War, however the ABN has a larger industrial base, producing more up-to-date designs.

2138: The Second Interplanetary War turns in favor of the ABN as their newer 3 kilometer long battlecraft (and other designs) begin arriving in force. And given that their primary batteries consist of (2) Petawatt x-ray lasers (equivalent to ~250 kilotons of TNT per second each) this is a _very_ sharp turn in the ABN's favor.

2139: The Second Interplanetary War draws to a close, an investigation by multiple parties reveals that though the New Jupiter Dominion was innocent of the wargames disaster, the ABN had found evidence of countless violations of Sapient Rights in the NJD, including AI slavery. Given the evidence (which was independently verified by the Garden World trio) the ABN was not persecuted, and was allowed to retain Jupiter as part of their holdings.

2142: Despite the fact that Earth is _already_ a Garden World, they produce a Terraformer Mind. Despite Jonsen providing a nice boost to ecological stability, that isn't his primary purpose. The fact is that Terraformers have a directive to construct and _maintain_ a habitat that is pleasant for Humans to live in. This maintenance includes helping the local humans to live in peace with each other. therefore the primary benefit to Jonsen's existence is in pacifying anti-upload radicals that are threatening to render Earth a war-torn hellhole.

2143: The Prothean Cache is accidentally destroyed by someone fumbling an asteroid capture, leading to the place being smashed quite thoroughly. The ecological damage is fixed by Cooner in a few months, but he would still rather not need to deal with that again.

2149: A radio message returns from Alpha Centauri, indicating that the colonization mission is going well over there.

CENSUS: 2150: ~126,000,000,000 humans (20,000,000 in Alpha Centauri), 3 Terraformer Minds, 1,234 Habitat Minds (more a matter of older habitats getting upgraded than people making new habitats)(3 in Alpha Centauri), 1 Antimatter Factory Manager Intelligence (AFMI)

2156: Proton-Proton fusion is cracked, allowing fusion reactors to run off any old bits of Hydrogen. At least, its cracked in Sol, which has a much more developed R&D base than Alpha Centauri.

2157: Great stability is achieved in Sol, largely as a result of Terraformer intervention. This is part of Tiffy's plan to keep her 'parents' from fighting each other and making a mess she and the rest of the Terraformers need to clean up.

2161: Charon is knocked out of the system by an RKKV test performed by Uranus. The Relay inside isn't a particularly high priority for tracking and just... gets lost.

2169: The humans and AIs of Sol unite under the name of the Allied Sapient Beings, poised to expand into the greater galaxy. Tiffy notably throws a planet-wide party as soon as the act goes through. During this time she utilizes several 'passes for human' avatar platforms to attend with her 'planet-mates'.

2174: Tiffy and Cooner manage to crack the problem with the Alcubierre drive. Admittedly the current version is limited to 1 light year a week and needs to burn A/M fuel equivalent to 1% of the mass you're trying to move every time you turn it on, but it works. Tiffy, in her adorably altruistic way, gives the plans to everyone. She even offers to supply antimatter _for the express purpose of powering the Alcubierre drive or other engines and no other_.

CENSUS: 2175: Systems owned by ASB: 1  
>Human Population: ~200,000,000,000<br>Terraformer Mind population: 4 (1 in Alpha Centauri)  
>Habitat Mind Population: ~5,000, 1 AFMI<p>

2176: A warp-equipped vessel called the _Visitor_ pops by Alpha Centauri, it returns with good news, an ambassador, and a contract to the company that made it to set up scheduled flights between Alpha Centauri and Sol.

2181: The old infrastructure for interplanetary colonization is re-fitted for interstellar colonization, allowing the colony ships (preceded by Terraformers) to be spewed out at a good rate. This leads to colonies rapidly springing up at Tau Ceti and Sirius. Notably these colonies are set with pre-configured population and quality of life thresholds, which immediately grant full membership if both criteria are passed, though membership can be revoked if these criteria are failed after joining.

2184: Tiffy and Cooner release the Mk. 2 warp drive, which is faster at 1 light year per day. In addition it is more fuel efficient, requiring only a tenth of the antimatter of the Mk. 1 to start up the drive.

2187: The rogue planet known as 'rock' has a Terraformer seeded on it, just to see what clever thing it comes up with. Though it is also noted that the place could easily function as a 'bomb shelter' if necessary.

2191: Computing technology runs into a wall. After all, past a certain point you're just trying to squeeze more MegaFlops per molecule than physics will let you do. Still, by this point a human-level mind can fit in a package the size of an antique deck of poker cards.

2196: The Mk. 3 warp drive is produced. Focusing on efficiency over speed, The Mk. 3 has low enough energy requirements to use fusion rather than antimatter. Still, that means you can either burn 2% of your ship's mass in fusion fuels or 0.01% in A/M fuel. It comes out around the same amount of energy. The Mk. 3 isn't any faster than the Mk.2 really, but it's certainly cheaper to run.

CENSUS: 2200: Systems owned by ASB: 4 (Sol, Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, Sirius)  
>Human-Level Mind Population: ~328,000,000,000<br>Terraformer Mind Population: 8  
>Habitat Mind Population: ~22,000<p>

2203: An obsessed mad scientist known only as "John" produces an FTL communicator. It works by stuffing information through a minuscule wormhole. This means that it must be brought near another communicator (note that going through another wormhole counts as 'near', allowing some degree of networking) to link up, but can maintain a link at any range. Even better, it only needs 1 kilowatt of power to maintain the wormhole. The system starts proliferating rapidly.

2205: The Mk. 4 warp drive is developed. It uses only half the energy of the Mk. 3, but is faster at roughly 5 light years per day.

2208: In a somewhat radical move, the Terraformer deployed to Arcturus begins disassembling the planets in the system. When questioned as to why it stated that it was going to build a ringworld.

2211: The Terraformer sent to the rock officially takes the name Bump, and reveals that he has managed to fit an entire planetoid 2,300 kilometers in diameter with a warp drive. To get fuel needs down to something reasonable, Bump cruises the rock to Sirius at 1.5 c, rather than the 2,000 c that a Mk. 4 warp drive can pull at full power.

2217: The Mk. 5 warp drive is unveiled, with a top speed about 30 light years per day. Its energy cost for top speed is only negligibly different than the Mk. 4.

2218: The Rock arrives at Sirius, once there Bump settles into a low solar orbit and starts rebuilding the thing into a proper starship.

2222: First Contact is achieved with a fungi-ish species known as the Grath that has just figured out their version of the Mk. 1 warp drive. It goes poorly, kicking off the First Interstellar War. In case anyone was curious, the Grath shot first.

CENSUS: 2225: Systems Under ASB Control: 7  
>Human-Level Mind Population: ~534,000,000,000<br>Terraformer Mind Population: 18  
>Habitat Mind Population: ~59,000<p>

2226: The First Interstellar War heats up, with the ASB using heavy X-ray lasers in the double-digit petawatts and horrendously powerful Warp Missiles to splat Grath forces with their superior technology and logistics . However, that doesn't always help if you can't tell where the enemy is keeping their systems. Even worse, the Grath take to performing hit-and-run attacks with their own Warp Missiles, leading to the first death of a Terraformer Mind in history, namely Dusty of Tau Ceti. Bump accelerates refitting of the Rock into a warship.

2232: The Mk. 6 warp drive is developed, with only a tiny increase in power usage over the Mk. 5, it has a top speed of 120 light years per day.

2233: The Rock is completed. It is armed with a 12-yottawatt target-splitting x-ray laser (equivalent to 3 exatons of TNT per second) along with countless smaller lasers along with warp missiles. All systems besides sensors, engines, and weapons are buried under 300 kilometers of the toughest armor the ASB can make. In addition Bump manages to fit the thing with a Mk. 6 warp drive before leaving. Without further adieu Bump leaves Sirius to search for and kill any Grath assets he can find.

2239: The Rock finds the Grath homeworld. After Bump manages to intercept their Warp missiles with his own Very Dangerous Array of them and mass-scatters a moon 3,000 km in diameter as a demonstration the Grath surrender.

2243: The Grath are confused at the ASB building them back up given that they thought the ASB was a genocidal Imperium. They are pleasantly surprised to find out that the ASB are basically nice people who happen to have reached space earlier and like to explore.

2248: The Mk. 7 warp drive is completed. It needs twice as much energy at top speed as the MK. 6, but is 3 times faster at 360 light years per day.

CENSUS: 2250: Systems Under ASB Control: 11 | Human-Level Mind Population: ~800,000,000,000 | Terraformer Mind Population: 23 | Habitat Mind Population: ~80,000

2251:Terraformers are seeded at every system within 120 light years of Sol. This includes a world that would have been named Mindoir in a different timeline. The Terraformer assigned to that planet takes the name Seraph.

2256: Bump, frustrated with how much fuel he needs to move the Rock and how hard it is to make antimatter, begins work on a method of using virtual event horizons to convert mass into energy.

2257: The average citizen of the ASB is now an infomorph running at 8 times time compression, who occasionally sleeves into biomorphs when in an appropriate habitat. Children often start their existence as code, and mature in much less time due to time compression.

2260: The Mk. 8 Warp drive is produced, it uses the same amount of energy as the Mk. 7, but goes somewhat faster at 500 light years per day.

2264: the purpose of the alien relic at the edge of Seraph's system is determined to be some sort of jump gate. It is proposed to send an expedition through, but the problem is succinctly put as "our stuff is too big to fit" by Seraph.

2269: Bump manages to perfect Hawking Conversion, alllowing any ship to get just as much kick as antimatter, but only needing any random junk you can cram in there for fuel. He begins refitting the Rock immediately.

2271: The basic structure of the Arcturus Ring is completed. The biotorus is expected to be completed by 2300

2274: The Rock is done refitting, along with most ASB ships. Hawking Conversion is the primary power source aboard ships, but fusion is still preferred in habitats as it produces useful heavy elements as a byproduct.

CENSUS: 2275: Systems Under ASB Control: 139 | Human-Level Mind Population: ~21,340,000,000,000 | Terraformer Mind Population: 186 | Habitat Mind Population: ~ 231,000,000

2276: Seraph sends a wormhole communicator equipped astrogtion probe through the mass relay, arriving in a location mathematically determined to be 2,300 light years spinwards by analyzing the emissions of known Pulsars. A 20 kilometer long warp ship is scheduled to visit the other end of the Relay, but before that happens a certain bone headed Turian patrol finds that Relay 314 is active, and an eezoless 100 meter long vessel is hanging in the void nearby.


	2. Chapter 2

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn! **

**Author's Note: **Sorry for just re-hashing the canon first contact, I promise it won't be a stomp. Oh, some Codex first. Please be aware that these Codex entries are from the somewhat biased perspective of the Council. This also reminds me that I'll be doing first person perspectives of various characters for the duration of the story.

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><p><strong>Warp Drive<strong>

The warp drive is an eezoless FTL drive produced by the ASB, it is heavily blackboxed and they won't share how it works. Compared to eezo FTL, it is slow and needs an utterly disproportionate amount of energy to activate. Its only saving grace, really, is that it can practically move far larger craft than eezo FTL. (unbiased: they missed that while it takes eezo FTL a while to get up to speed, a Warp Drive gets to top speed pretty much instantly after activation.) Worth noting is that warp travel also lacks the 'biochemical time dilation' that means those travelling between systems via eezo FTL need to go into stasis.

**Warp Missiles**

These nasty weapoms are effectively a small warp drive bolted to just enough fuel to get going a few times. They move at multiple thousands of c, and with the ABS habit of dumping FTL communicator equipped probes all over the combat zone have an effective range in the double-digit light minutes, or longer in ABS controlled systems. Kinetic Barriers are completely ineffective. On impact the front of its warp field starts by compressing the victim into its event horizon. However the more matter gets caught in the front of the Warp Field the less stable the whole thing gets until eventually the whole thing 'pops' when that happens all the matter caught in the Warp Field is released as energy. In general a warp field can collect mass equivalent to speed in c times frontal area kilograms (unaltered), meaning that a current-gen light warp missile will have a yield of roughly 4.3 teratons. (unbiased: they actually hit the nail right on the head here, except for the bit about using warp missiles to intercept incoming superluminal ordnance)

**Free Electron Lasers**

Given the lack of mass accelerators, and the fact that warp missiles are expensive, it makes sense that the ABS would have some other weapons system at their disposal. For this purpose, they have lasers. Free Electron Lasers work by producing a relativistic electron beam in a particle accelerator before being sent through an Undulator, which is a magnetic device commonly mistaken for a gun barrel. Ground-bound versions operate in the visual or infrared spectrum and have an output in the single-digit kilowatts. Spacecraft versions operate in the X-ray band and have an output measured in the double-digit terawatts to triple digit petawatts. Like all energy weapons the beam diffuses with distance. (unbiased: Yes, it diffuses with distance, that doesn't mean it does so particularly quickly.) Worth noting is that scaling a FEL below rifle size is hard enough to be impractical, and the standard ASB sidearm is therefore a maser pistol.

**Nanocarbide Composite Armor**

This highly durable armor composite is favored by the ASB. Interestingly it seems that part of the reason they like energy weapons so much is that this stuff handles kinetic impacts a lot better than it handles highly focused heat. That is primarily due to the insane tensile strength of graphene, especially after being mixed with a couple other exotic carbon allotropes and some Titanium. In general it takes multiple megatons of kinetic energy to penetrate a single meter of the stuff, with things getting exponentially more difficult to penetrate the deeper it is, but it only takes about 1 second of exposure with a 100 terawatt laser to evaporate a cubic meter of armor. Bearing in mind that ASB ships tend to have armor several hundred meters deep... (unbiased: the reason its so hard for kinetics to penetrate is that as it goes deeper it's trying to yank the armor to the side of the actual impact point towards itself, which means that it's also trying to go through the rest of the armor on that general part of the hull. Energy weapons don't have as much of a problem with this, but its still there due to graphene's insane thermal conductivity. Interestingly, this means the ship's armor is also its heat sinks and radiators.)

**Terraformers**

Technically a class 2 WMD except with the opposite function, Terraformers are the primary reason the ABS is as big as it is. These self-replicating machines are designed to convert even the most inhospitable of locales into Garden Worlds in under 50 years. To this end they are equipped with devices to alter atmospheric temperature, thickness, and composition, detoxify ground, and clone flora and fauna. The bit that really got the Council's attention was the reveal that each planet's Terraformers form a networked intelligence, resulting in each terraformed world having a unique personality. However, Teraformers uniformly are more mentally healthy when the world they spent so much time working on is inhabited by organics, to the degree of usually making some if left uninhabited for long enough. Notably, Terraformers are responsible for developing the ASB's warp drive, among other things.

When asked, most Terraformers view themselves as seperate from, but symbiotic with the rest of the ABS.

**Plasma Guns**

Making these powerful yet impractical weapons is a semi-common hobby in the ASB. They operate by causing a tiny fusion reaction, then using the energy to eject the superheated fuel pellets at several hundred Km/s. These weapons, though packing firepower equal to multiple tons of chemical explosives into a single blast, don't have enough range to be worthwhile. The reason in atmosphere is that the shot is, though fast, small and lacking enough momentum to go more than a couple dozen meters before drag brings the blast to a screeching halt. In space they lack range due to the insane temperatures of the shot making it basically explode before it goes a thousand kilometers. In addition, plasma is virtually useless against any target with kinetic barriers. The reason for that is twofold. First, the speed limit is guaranteed to slow the shot's velocity to only a fraction of what it should be, as the plasma has no way to compensate for it and is (despite popular belief) primarily a kinetic weapon. Second, the plasma wouldn't have anywhere near enough momentum to avoid being slapped to the side by the magnetic field component of the shield.

**The ASB**

The ASB is a power independent of the Citadel Council. Unlike the Council, all member species are allowed to participate, though currently this only includes the Humans, Grath, and the various synthetics they've created. Also unlike the council they send 1 representative per star system, rather than 1 per species. Representative terms are currently set at 5 Earth years, with a maximum of 3 terms with possibility of premature eviction from office. Currently, the ASB's capital is situated at Tau Ceti.

Worth noting is that the ASB has almost the exact opposite stance on AI and genetic engineering of the Council. This has led to them being considered a 'rogue state' to some, though the ASB has sufficient firepower to make everyone leave them alone. Despite this the ASB is trying to establish good relations with the majority of the Galaxy. They currently are on semi-good terms with most of the minor races (Geth included), with 2 exceptions, namely the Batarians and Quarians. The ASB absolutely hates the Batarian government for their practice of slavery, with the feeling being mostly mutual. The Quarians on the other hand are viewed as rather nice people who got shafted hard by the people on top. This, combined with the nature of ASB refugee laws resulted in the Quarians receiving a few industrial ships, along with the plans for the Mk. 6 warp drive. The Quarians for their part are thrilled at having the capability to not only produce custom-made spare parts, but design and build entire ships for the first time in centuries.

Relations between the ASB and the 'Big 3' differ by species.

The Asari are suffering from a suddenly deflated ego, as their idea that all other races needed to follow the same path to traverse the stars was recently shattered. In addition, there was the fact that as soon as the ASB had access to the Citadel they dredged up literally _every_ bit of evidence for incompetence and corruption in the Council, then smeared it all over the airwaves across Citadel Space by leveraging their cyberwarfare advantage. The Asari government was hit worst, as the ASB managed to find out about the Prothean Beacon they had. This led to the Asari public becoming extremely disillusioned with their government, almost triggering a civil war.

The Turians are going into a paranoid crash program to counter the ASB's military. The reason is that at first contact the ASB was almost perfectly tailored to utterly demolish Turian forces.

The Salarians don't exactly _like_ the ASB, but they appreciate that the presence of such a society has shaken them out of their rut. As a result of First Contact, the Salarian Union has made more paradaigm-shifting innovations in the last 30 years than in the previous 1500. This has resulted in the reputation of the Salarians shifting away from "spies" to "mad scientists".

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><p><strong>First Contact (POV: Hostius Canion, Captain of the HWS [C#35624])<strong>

As my ship dropped out of FTL at the edge of the (make $hit up in a great hurry #1) system and I awoke from long-distance transit stasis, I noted nothing out of the ordinary at first. The system was currently abandoned as far as I could tell. I was disillusioned of that notion within minutes as I noted a previously inactive relay (Relay 314 to be precise) was active. We were still on cool-down from FTL so I ordered my cruiser group to intercept, and we made a small in-system FTL hop. A subjective day but objective 5 minutes later, we were at the Relay.

Hanging in the void near it was a craft 100 meters in length, at the time I thought it a primitive, especially as no element zero could be detected in its design. Not being quite sure how to act, I turned to my second in command, Detis. I asked him what to do, first expounding on our situation "They are in violation of Citadel Law by opening an uncharted Relay, but they can't possibly know of this rule due to this being their first contact with said Citadel Council. I am unsure of what to do."

Detis' answer of "Obviously we shoot the primitives for disobeying Citadel Law, then go pacify their homeworld."

I hated his answer immediately, so I decided to contradict him with "You are a stuck up idiot if you think shooting at people we know almost nothing about the relative strength and technology base of is a good idea. I shall instead be following proper procedure for a peaceful first contact." The package was fairly simple, starting with prime numbers. I won't go into details, but we were about halfway through the long process of sending our language over when a massive spacecraft half as long as the Citadel just... appeared. I was about to order for an immediate escape at FTL, when the large craft sent a radio transmission in passable Turian. The message read a simple "We regret to inform you that you just spent several hours talking to a navigation drone we sent to figure out the destination. As a consolation we have been listening, and are willing to speak with you. We are the Heavy Exploration Vessel _Longshot 2_, from the Alliance of Sapient Beings. Cultural background broadcast will begin shortly."

The broadcast began roughly as expected with them having an industrial revolution about 480 years ago, followed by multiple wars. Then they expanded off their planet, which is where my expectations started to break down. After getting into space they had 2 SEPERATE wars before developing FTL, and managed to make a hell world in their inner system into a Garden World in under 50 years. In addition, said immense feat of Terraforming was performed by an exponentially expanding, self-improving AI gestalt. And then when said AI turned out to be friendly, these people made _more_ of them. And then there was the fact that they had missed eezo entirely, and had created a means of FTL regardless with the help of the aforementioned AI gestalts. After that was the war with the Grath, which instead of ending with genocide or one of the parties being reduced to a nuisance for the other, ended with both species as partners who even stopped referring to the others as aliens after the first 30 years.

All in all, I came to the conclusion that this 'Alliance of Sapient Beings' broke just about every rule the Council made for the safety of organic life, but managed to come out stronger for it. Before my subordinates could open fire i stopped them, saying "I know that these people break all the rules, but they haven't shot at us yet and I have no intent of giving them any reason to do so."

With that tension resolved, I returned the favor of sending the cultural heritage broadcast to the _Longshot 2_, but you already know the details of that particular package. Before we could depart to inform you of this turn of events, we received a reply from the _Longshot 2, _namely "Ow... you really didn't get lucky for neighbors or creations did you?" Before my crew could do anything rash I ordered for us to set a course to the Citadel via the fastest route, and started walking towards the stasis deck. On the way there, I took Detis aside and said to him "And THAT is why you don't shoot first when confronted with unknown vessels. If we had followed through with your [small rodent-like creature]-brained plan, we would have all been vaporized with multiple petawatts worth of X-ray laser, possibly when we destroyed that navigation probe, possibly when we went to Seraph's system and started threatening her safety, or maybe when the _Longshot 2 _arrived and jumped to conclusions."

Detis decided to voice his opinion once more, stating with a somber look "I knew it was a bad idea when I said it, but I brought it up to at least get you thinking about what could happen if you went ahead with enforcing Citadel Law against unknowns. That said, that was the most thoughtful about possible consequences that I've ever seen you. Why was that?"

I replied, cracking a smile in the process "Simple, my drill instructor made it quite clear to me in training that charging into a situation without intelligence is either suicide, death by stupid, an ambush by the enemy, or some mix of the three. And I have no great desire to have 'death by stupidity' carved into my memorial stone." And with that final remark the stasis tube closed around me, before unconsciousness filled the subjective years I would spend in transit to the Citadel.


	3. Chapter 3

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note: **Canon!Biotics = Not!Wizards. Over Analysis!Biotics = Ultimate speedblitz machines who can make people explode. Please remember that the Mass Effect side in this operates on the physics I determined in Over Analysis.

Any way, this chapter will deal with the ASB's reaction to contacting the Citadel, and vice versa.

* * *

><p><strong>ASB Capital Station (POV: Tiffy)<strong>

As the session started, I sent my Long Distance Humanoid Interface Platform (which I'd designed to look like a busty curly-haired blonde in her 20s) up the stairs to the Senate Chamber. Arriving in the cavernous room amid 148 other representatives almost gave me something resembling stage fright, but I fought through it. I had a job to do after all, I was the representative for Sol! Diverting a bit of my attention to my other projects for a moment (ah, the wonders of being a hivemind), I went to my seat and waited.

The currently appointed Orderly (called such because that's what he kept the Senate) opened up with "Ladies, Gentleman, and asexual organisms! Today we have made first contact with another alien society, and for the time being at least it is peaceful!" As I absorbed that, he continued with "However, they are fearful of engineered sapience of any sort, which at least 60% of the ASB consists of. We can therefore not stand to let them destroy almost all of our civilization, any ideas Gentlebeings?"

The representative for Gliese (a habitat mind known as Otir) stood up and said "I vote that we need an ultimatum, something that they can't ignore, and demonstrates enough firepower to make them leave us alone." The voting system came online for that idea, I voted no on it. Despite that, the vote still came up as 87 for, 62 against.

I spoke "If we're going to carry on with this 'ultimatum' plan, which I generally think is a bad idea, we've only really got a few options. First, we could send the Rock to this Citadel of theirs. This option shows the most of our hand, which could either make them leave us alone for a really long time, or backfire horribly. Second, we send a large but mostly conventional fleet to each of their home-worlds. This option doesn't reveal that we've got something as insanely powerful as the Rock, but might have even more clout because with this option we make it clear we can wipe them out at any time. Option 3 is to demonstrate a warp missile on some gas planet while explaining what we're doing. This also induces a MAD situation, but is less likely to make them panic."

The vote started, and I placed mine for demonstrating a warp missile. The vote closed after a few minutes, revealing 49 for option Rock, 56 for option Fleet, and 44 for option Missile. I sighed, oh well. And with that the topic changed to domestic policy, namely on how we'd go about informing the general public of the presence of aliens. I voted for full disclosure, but the rest is something of a haze as I shifted my attention back towards Venus. At least on Venus I was allowed to make a full disclosure.

As one of my millions of bodies sat petting a design of squirrelcat I'd gotten from Cooner, My mind was preparing a presentation for Venus' media network. I managed to keep it under an hour, but it generally was as honest about the situation as I thought I could be without inciting a panic.

My presentation began with "On this day, first contact has been made once more. We managed to have a peaceful conversation with the Turians, but there is no guarantee that things will _stay_ peaceful, though I wish they would." As people started to notice (and panic in a few isolated cases) I continued "That does not mean they are likely to attack immediately, far from it. The problem is that these aliens have had several very bad experiences with artificial intelligence, and therefore made 60% of our population _illegal_ within their system." with that 68% of my population tensed up "To dissuade them from attacking, we will therefore be ensuring a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario will take place if they attack and making sure they know it."

With that several people relaxed slightly. "In addition, they use a different method of FTL than us. Their version is faster, but takes a while to get up to top speed and is dependent upon an extremely rare element, limiting the size of ships they can build. As for weaponry, that same element allows for them to produce railguns and mass drivers far more powerful than they should be." Tension built again.

I continued with "However, it should be noted that their primary defenses are completely ineffective for defeating our weapons systems. Those systems are primarily optimized for dealing with kinetic weapons, but FELs aren't kinetic by any stretch of the imagination, and warp missiles circumvent the shield's zone of reduced c that makes any kinetic weapon we could produce almost worthless." Relief is apparent among 96% of my population, and I continue "The Turians are part of a larger government including several species that has settlements across most of the galaxy, however the density of these settlements is sparse. The reason for them being so spread out is that they are dependent on an ancient portal network for long distance travel, meaning that the whole of their civilization isn't much bigger than ours."

* * *

><p><strong>Council Chambers, Citadel (POV: Councilor Tevos)<strong>

As I entered the back room, the new Turian Councilor (I think his name was Sparatus) had an apprehensive look on his face, and said "We need to talk. A First Contact situation has occurred, and these aliens are in all likelihood a menace to everyone around them." As I sat down, I [raised 1 eyebrow] and asked "Your people didn't happen to shoot on sight when these aliens violated Citadel Law out of ignorance, did they?"

Sparatus said "Thankfully, no. There have been no shots fired as of present, but these aliens have integrated Artificial Intelligence and Genetic Engineering into their civilization to such an insane degree that they literally wouldn't be able to survive on the majority of their worlds without synthetic organisms." Thinking hard, I asked for him to clarify. The answer I got, "All but three of their almost 200 Garden Worlds were terraformed by self-replicating networked AIs, which have getting better at their function as one of their directives. In addition, only 54 are in a situation where they'll _stay_ Garden Worlds without constant management." surprised me.

Not knowing what else to do I asked "Don't they know that's dangerous? What if they rebel? How are they managing to live with synthetics!?" The answers I got out of Sparatus were "They apparently had over 150 years of science fiction about possible AI revolutions or 'evil robots', and went ahead and made AIs _anyway. _They probably know that AIs are possibly dangerous, but that apparently hasn't stopped them. As for a possible AI revolt scenario, it seems the ASB managed to greatly reduce the probability of that by removing most of the factors that would act as motivation for revolt. And I'm fairly certain that if they did revolt no-one in the galaxy would really stand any chance of stopping them.


	4. Chapter 4

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note: **It's time to call in the Fleet. Oh, and smear all the council's dirt all over the extranet.

* * *

><p><strong>Thessia (POV: Captain<strong> **Yelena Val Emerson of the ASBTV [Allied Sapient Beings Trade Vessel] _Presentation_)**

As we arrived at Thessia from our staging point 50 light years off, I felt a bit of apprehension as to our course of action. I was travelling with 1,000 other 30 km long vessels, holds currently loaded down with video games, cartoons, movies, literature, and other cultural parapernalia. And cyberwarfare equipment. Not to mention Warp Missiles, too many Finagle-damned Warp Missiles in my opinion given that each ship carried over 200 of the things with each one being capable of rendering an entire hemisphere of the Asari home-world uninhabitable. Of course, there was also the standard 350,000 Very Light warp missiles/sensor probes used for point defense per ship, but those counted as proactive defenses rather than weapons.

Admittedly, if everything went well we'd only be doing a cultural exchange and maybe signing a trade agreement, but regardless of how things went the purpose of this mission was obvious to anyone who looked. By putting thousands of ships bigger than anything they could field right on their doorstep, we'd be telling them that messing with us would have dire consequences, even though they didn't know about the WMD applications possessed by warp drives.

The moment of truth came now, as we dropped warp 10 light minutes out from Thessia. Immediately, we sent a radio transmission identifying ourselves as being a trading mission from the ASB, using our FELs dialed down to a lower power setting and set for a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum. As we waited for light lag to let them see and hear us, I went over my reasoning for popping up where we did. First, showing up several light minutes out misled them that our drives may have problems dealing with gravity wells, which was a patent falsehood. Second it gave them a lot more breathing room than if we'd shown up in orbit without really hindering our ability to kill their world if everything went FUBAR thanks to warp missiles. That extra breathing room was important, as it made them less likely to panic and start shooting us, and despite what some may think, we weren't genocidal **[censored]** who killed worlds for shits and giggles. Maybe out of self-preservation, but not for shits and giggles.

25 minutes passed before we got a reply, though most of that was probably light lag. During that time, I changed the lubricant of the synthetic body I was currently wearing for a 'face to face' meeting, and simulated lunch. Sure, this body didn't need to eat besides a trickle of fusionables and the occasional chunk of raw materials for the self-repair system, but food tasted too good for me to give it up willingly. I was just finishing up the desert course (a sweet & spicy pudding based on a fruit Dusty had invented before his untimely demise) when the alert that we had received a reply came in. Without further adieu, I cancelled that simulation and switched to the Command Center shared VR. Settling into the command seat, I ordered "Set us to maximum dilation factor, we're going to need a lot of extra time to think. Also, I missed what the aliens said, please play it back."

My communications officer obliged, and I heard the Asari transmission "ASB trading fleet, We are willing to engage in trade with you. There will be no need for you to approach Thessia further, we will come to you. We don't have any docking facilities big enough for your ships anyway." That was fine for me, still I ordered a Very Dangerous Array of Very Light warp missiles to be deployed out to a range of 5 light minutes. If they tried to perform a super-luminal attack on us, we'd be able to intercept them before they got anywhere close. I then ordered a return transmission of "We would appreciate if you approached at slower-than-light speeds, so as not to trigger our automated defenses against inbound FTL munitions."

20 minutes later I received a return transmission of "This is acceptable. We typically use slower-than-light for in-system flights anyways, as the hassles of our FTL system make it only worth bothering with for extra-long flights, such as interstellar. Estimated arrival time is in a bit under seven and a half of your hours."

I nodded. Let's see... 7.45 hours times 8 for time compression meant I had roughly 2.5 subjective days in which I could do whatever. I decided to go for a steampunk fantasy MMORPG with the rest of the crew while we waited.

* * *

><p><strong>7.45 hours later<strong>

Just as I was about to finish destroying the clockwork lich's last revival engine, the alert that the Asari trade fleet would be here in 10 subjective minutes sounded. Sighing, I took one last shot with my Aetheric Accelerator, and watched the silver blast of force race out to smash the intricate construct of Mage's Brass and crystallized Mana. I then exited the sim and went took control of the WormComm operated Gynoid I would be using for face to face interactions. I dressed as I went, getting into a formal captain's uniform i had run off the fabricator while I was in the personnel rapid transit lift. A quick check to make sure that my synthskin was on right and in good condition, and out into the spectator box for the hangar I went.

The hangar doors were admittedly a weak point in the ship's armor, but a necessary one. Still, the door was 50 meters thick. The armor layer was 5 times thicker in all other locations besides the engines, weapon hard-points, and sensors. The hangar itself was 300 meters long, 80 high, and 240 wide, which fit the 150 meter long freighter they'd sent wonderfully. As they set down on the magnetized flooring (it would be no good wasting perfectly serviceable gravitons in an area they'd just get in the way most of the time), the door started to close. 20 seconds later, the door slammed shut, and standard nitrogen/oxygen breathable air was pumped in. When the atmosphere was up to 1 Bar of pressure, the lighting briefly flashed green, and the interior doors to the cargo lift unlocked. With that done, I went to the hangar bay to greet our guests.

They didn't activate the landing ramp until I came out without wearing the helmet of my vacuum suit (which I'd only bother with if I were wearing my biomorph, but whatever), though I'm not sure if that was courtesy or just them taking their sweet time to get everything set up. However, about 2 minutes after I went to stand by the landing ramp, it opened. When I'd heard that Asari looked disturbingly like baseline humans, I was a bit incredulous. Seeing them in person however, killed any doubt I had. Apparently I zoned out a bit from shock, but recovered in just 0.5 real-time seconds thanks to my virtual time compression.

The Asari in question seemed equally shocked, and took a few seconds to recover. I broke the ice by saying "This particular ship is loaded with entertainment media, we are willing to give the first shipload free as a promotional, but will need some compensation for any further sales. Worth noting is that all the electronics are black-boxed, and downloads are heavily copy protected." The leader of the Asari group made what I guessed was an affirmative gesture, and stated

"This particular vessel is loaded with **[circumventing writer's block by not defining cargo]**, We are willing to trade these loads evenly, and then have another vessel pick up the complementary load."

At this point I also decided to warn them that "Also, our definition of black-boxed and heavily copy protected is 'if you open it without very specific authorization all the functional bits will self-immolate." That seemed to give her something of a jolt, so I reassured her that "But don't worry, those things are encased in one of the most indestructible materials it's possible to make. We build to last after all."

* * *

><p><strong>28 hours later, at the staging point system 50 light years away<strong>

The 'entertainment media' was successfully offloaded from 8 ships, with the rest just running off fruits from the fabricators that what we'd gotten said should be safe for the Asari to eat or other random junk we thought they might like. What we got back was scanned for reproduction in the fabricators or spawning in the rec-room virtual realities if we thought it could be useful (and _any_ encoded information whatsoever was classified as 'useful'), before being broken down into raw matter for use in the fabricators or as fuel regardless of what it was.

However, the intimidation part of this mission was more-or-less complete, with the WormComm network informing us that the operations at Palaven, Sur'kesh, Irune, Dekuuna, Rannoch (which was more to go and ask the Geth what they _actually_ thought of organics than intimidation), and Kahje had gone smoothly as well. Complications had, however, arisen when dealing with the Batarians. That was understandable however, given that the operation there wasn't so much intimidation as "go down to all their planets at once and forcibly liberate all their slaves."

The important bit was that everyone they'd done the 'trading' with took some of the entertainment electronics. The reason was that each unit had a minuscule WormComm in it, powered purely from the end back in the ASB's main sphere. They were also designed to be able to network with **any** electronics in a 100 meter radius that were wireless enabled. Put that together with them basically being a solid lump of computronium all the way through except for the WormComm, power supply, user interface (including audio, visual, and Olfactory outputs) and thermite charge, and divining their true purpose would be borderline impossible. Then there was the fact that each unit contained a volunteer cyberwarfare AI using about 95% of the available processing power from a slab of computronium several orders of magnitude greater than what was needed to run a human-level mind.

It was then that we got the message we had been waiting for: **The Extranet is Ours.**


	5. Chapter 5

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note:** In this chapter, an Asari gets technopathy and a ranged mind-rape attack, lots of Batarians die as collateral damage, A cyberwarfare AI invents its own version of Indoctrination, and one lucky Quarian brings home the best pilgrimage gift ever. (not necessarily in that order). Also a bit of codex, since someone was curious what the Grath were like. Let's just say that my aliens really are alien.

* * *

><p><strong>Grath<br>**Strictly speaking, the Grath are 2 entirely separate species. The majority of the organism is best described as a variety of spider-crab with dextrous manipulators that is about about as smart as a chimp on its own. The other species is a fungus similar to the earth-originating _Cordyceps_ mushroom, which digests and replaces the host's brain, bulging into a large fungal mass which protrudes from the top of the skull and looks like a mushroom cap. This 'mushroom cap' is durable and rubbery. The fungus retains sapience for up to 8 days after the death of its host which it does not hasten in any way normally, during which time it is releasing spores that infect any 'unclaimed' Hosts they come into contact with.

The Hosts are known to live for up to 87 years, maturing at 12. Hosts are egg-layers, which typically lay clutches of 8-13 eggs at a time. The Grath themselves can theoretically live forever if provided with nutrients, but cannot be inserted into another host (though a project to allow them to upload is going quite well). Worth noting is that Grath _can_ spore at any time, and uninfected Hosts instinctively avoid Grath in the wild, necessitating a 'Host-farming' industry. In addition, the Host's reproductive organs are no longer functional under Grath control.

As a human succinctly put it "The Grath are kind of like one of those bad zombie movies, except the zombies get _smarter _instead of _dumber_."

* * *

><p><strong>Lorek (POV: Aminasa Lius, relatively newly captured Asari slave)<strong>

I woke up, as ready to start another horrible day of malnutrition, hard labor, and abuse if I didn't go faster than was physically possible in my sorry state as I could be. I didn't want to get out of bed, but not doing so would lead to a worse beating than usual, which I would rather avoid. As I hauled myself out of the cot I had been assigned 7 years ago I sighed. If I had time to ramp up my biotics I could kill all my captors with ease, but where would that get me? The answer was no-where. Firstly I would set off my bomb collar by doing that and wouldn't kill anyone without a great deal of luck or planning. Second, even if I did escape I would have no way to get off this planet and would eventually be gunned down.

Today the master (or, as I secretly thought of him, the Bastard) had gotten a new video game console, apparently produced by a newly-contacted alien race that had just shown up with a trade fleet over Khar'Shan. I had been tasked with bringing it into the living area, and was carrying what seemed to be a white box with a faintly glowing golden disc on the top. As I carried the box, I could have sworn I heard a faint "_well, that's bizarre alien biology at its finest if you ask me._" Managing to continue waking, I though 'back' at it "_Huh?"_ I did not expect the received answer of "_I'm the dedicated cyberwarfare intelligence inside this console, if anyone asks you're just hearing voices in your head. One of my functions is to interface with all wireless technology in range in an attempt to hijack the Extranet, apparently Asari nervous systems count as wireless-capable thanks to your melding ability."_

Managing to get the console to the living room without showing any hint of my internal conversation was weird, but I managed it. As I set it down I asked one very important question namely "_Will I still be able to talk with you when i set you down?_" The answer I got was "_Well, I'll definitely be able to talk to you, but I'm not sure if you'll be able to broadcast back to me at long distances. I'm a cyberwarfare AI designed to be able to do some pretty impressive things with any systems I can interface with, so I might be able to install a 'broadcast' program for your nervous system optimized to make your signals travel further but it will be a minimal improvement at best, maybe able to converse with me in the same room. If you want me to do that I'll need your permission"._

I immediately sent back "_Yes, please! By the way, can you hack the Bastard to be less abusive? If you make him behave too" _In return I recieved "_Done. And, sorry but I can't _directly_ hack the Bastard, his species nervous system isn't set up for wireless like an Asari. I might be able to do something with subliminal messaging however_." I sighed internally before setting the Console down, and flipping the mental 'on' switch the AI had installed in. my.. mind... SHIT!

**=Timeskip: 2 months=**

After getting over the realization that I'd basically given an AI permission to hack my brain, me and Console kept something of a professional relationship. I'd still taken every opportunity to converse with it that I could. After a few days Console put me in contact with a much more powerful AI named Bump. In the process I learned that Console had an FTL communicator of some sort built in. Bump had listened to my story, and had somehow arranged for this "ASB's" version of the Council to enforce their anti-slavery regulations on the Batarians. However it would take a while to get everything in position and they needed to do it all at once for best effect. Still, in the mean time Console had managed to use that subliminal messaging trick to psychologically guide the Bastard away from physically abusing me or the other slaves. It wasn't better, but it was a shipload better than it had been.

I'd also taken the time to try using my broadcast ability on things other than Console, and after a month and a half of trial and error had managed to establish a tenuous Extranet connection. I'd taken to trawling various forums for things to amuse myself during curfew, not to much success given that I was in the middle of the Hegemony.

According to Console, today was the day it all went down, and it'd taken the liberty along with the rest of its model to sneakily sabotage all the slave collars in the entire Hegemony. Still, I wasn't about to do anything out of the ordinary until the ASB arrived, primarily to avoid getting shot. It was at roughly hour 14 when Console informed me "_The liberation fleet has exited warp in low orbit, all Hegemony Space Forces have been eliminated through the usage of Free Electron Lasers due to collateral damage risks related to usage of Warp Missiles near inhabited biospheres. Drop Ships are being deployed._" And with that, I burst into action.

I quickly applied my biotics to the task of increasing my speed and charged up the stairs to the Bastard's room at about Mach 2, grabbing an antique lamp I didn't particularly care for on the way. As I approached the locked door, the lamp was subject to as much mass lightening as I could achieve and thrown. Given the physics of what I was doing the lamp hit like an anti-tank munition, easily removing the door from existence. I came to a halt in the Bastard's room, and initiated a meld from across the room with my broadcast ability. As I sorted through his mind I didn't even bother looking, just ripping apart every memory or thought I could find, using every cyber-warfare trick I'd managed to learn from Console.

By the time I was done with the Bastard, all that was left was an incoherent mess that would do nothing blubber and cry, at least between the extremely intense [epileptic seizures] that would occur every few hours. With that, I boosted my speed to about 5 kilometers per second, and went out to wreak some havoc. Leaping out the window, I saw the 350 meter long dropship hovering in midair over the city, deploying troops. Below me I saw a group of Batarian troops, and extended a tendril of lightness, getting to watch them die of thermal shock as I passed above them at just below escape velocity. And to think, this was just 30 milliseconds after I destroyed the Bastard. I landed briefly against the wall of a skyscraper, letting the plasma wave cause problems for someone, and using what seemed to me to be several seconds but was actually only a few milliseconds in all likelyhood, looked for another group of troops to smash. Spotting one, I grabbed a jagged pane of glass from the window I had shattered with my arrival and threw it at the group like a [frisbee], only to be pleasantly surprised when its silicate nature lead to it whipping right through their barriers without getting knocked aside. Continuing, I decided to try my hand at smashing a tank. now if only I could _find_ one the ASB drop-ship hadn't lasered out of existence yet.

I finally managed to find one, settling on top of its turret. Slowly, I increased its mass lightening factor over about 15 seconds or so, before leaping away down the street as I released it. The tank blowing up was quite satisfactory. That was when I noticed the telltale streak of a Biotic at top speed slowly (speaking in subjective time) whizzing towards me. Not wanting to get hit, I deployed one of the techniques I'd been taught to keep enemy biotics from messing with your mass and dodged to the side. As the Batarian came to a stop, I wasn't quite sure what to do, after all despite my success I hadn't been trained for biotic on Biotic combat while this person obviously was. I needed to blindside him with something he wasn't ready for and couldn't possibly see coming.

I broadcast melded once more. If I'd thought the Bastard's mind was disgusting, then this Batarian's was an affront to all sapient life. I commenced with ripping his mind apart immediately. Then I realized that he could be useful to me, and instead of totally destroying him, subverted him to my will. Now the 'good guys' had 2 biotics and the slavers had zero. It was then that I noticed ex-slaves being packed into shuttles ready to lift off. Looking around I also realized that a lot of the city had apparently been lasered into submission. Looks like it's time to leave. Before performing a biotic leap into the hangar of the dropship, I exploded the head of my thrall, as otherwise I'd be performing an even worse act of slavery than these Batarians. And with that I left.

It was then I realized that the ASB had done more for me then the Citadel Council ever had. As far as I was concerned, the Council could go hang.

* * *

><p><strong>Seraph (location) (POV: Meeno'Yolas nar Yizzor)<strong>

I was excited as the ship I was on went through its cooling cycle over Seraph. I had been on the Citadel when the ASB had been contacted, trying and failing to get a job fixing stuff. Through diligence I had managed to obtain a ticket on the first commercial liner into ASB space, which was in extremely high demand. No matter what happened, I couldn't allow the Council to paint our species as worthless scavengers to them. If that happened, there might never be a chance to fix my specie's lot in life ever again.

Docking with one of Seraph's many orbital elevators, I immediately informed them of my biological needs (they had fabricators that could synthesize biomass out of raw chemicals, they could likely make something for me) and asked to be put in touch with someone higher up the command chain.

When I was asked as to why I replied with "Because as I'm the first member of my species to come in contact with you, I effectively count as an ambassador until further notice." At this point the Grath I was talking to said "you know the entire planet is sapient, or close enough to it anyway, right? You can just go ask one of Seraph's avatars for some time and she'll likely talk to you."

I considered this all as I rode the orbital elevator to Seraph's surface.

**=Timeskip: 13 hours=**

As I stepped out of the ground station of the orbivator, I immediately started looking around the city I was in (named Impact for the crater it was built in) for a place I could stand without someone looking at me, I wanted to have this conversation in private after all. Eventually I managed to find a back alley, and marveled at how _clean _it was. I figured it made sense given that the entire city was probably self-cleaning. The alley reached a T, which I went left at.

I was not expecting to see what appeared to be a winged human woman lying on a couch with a recliner across the alley from me. As I turned into the alley she looked straight at me and gestured at the recliner. I obliged, and sat. She spoke first, saying "So, I'm Seraph, though this is just one of millions of bodies of differing specifications. Normally I use this one for when I want to make official statements or something. Any ways, I looked at the customs reports when I heard there was a Quarian wanting to speak with me, so I already know your name's Meeno. Oh, by the way I've got a nanoswarm up in this alley that's killing any microbes that could possibly harm you, meaning you can take that suit off if you like."

I took my opportunity to speak "I'm curious as to how you figured I would be in this alley when I didn't even know it existed 5 minutes ago. Enough small talk though, I'm here to ask how I can acquire aid for the Quarian species." Seraph caught a fruit that fell from the air (probably dropped by one of her other bodies) and took a bite before replying "Well, for the first bit I figured you'd want to have the conversation in private, noticed you were smart enough to realize I have surveillance literally everywhere here, and then I just picked an alley and gave you a few gentle nudges in the right direction with subliminal messaging." I **[nod-equivalent affimative gesture]**, and Seraph continued "As for getting you aid, the simplest way would be for the Quarian people to join the ASB, we take care of our own after all, but if I'm correct there would be significant objections on the Quarian end due to bad experiences with AI." I **[nod-equivalent affimative gesture]** once more.

"There's another thing I could arrange however, and I think you'll like it. Oh also, I'm saving you the effort of talking by reading what you're thinking of saying when you subvocalize it. Anyway my offer is to give you a few big collapsible factory ships, along with plans for proton-proton fusion and an old but serviceable mark of Warp Drive, maybe WormComms too. So, are you up for it?" I promptly said "YES!" before Seraph nodded and ended the conversation with "Certainly, I'll even throw in educational media on the physics behind everything I give you guys. Everything will still take a couple weeks to set up, so enjoy your stay on me in the mean time. Oh, I'll also arrange lodging and compatible food for you in the mean time."


	6. Chapter 6

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note: **In this chapter, A cyberwarfare video game console gets within range of the Athame beacon, the Streisand Effect is weaponized, Tevos gets a hangover, Batarians complain ineffectually, and Saren gets religion.

Sorry about it being so short, but my tendency to procrastinate along with my strict 1 chapter per day schedule came back to bite me.

Also, a little tidbit that not many know even in the ASB is that the reason (most) Terraformer minds don't just make loads of space habitats is because they actually convert 90% of their host planet's mass into computronium. This means that they _literally_ (to quote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) "Have a brain the size of a planet."

* * *

><p><strong>ASB DIA (Decentralized Intelligence Agency)(POV: Some analyst AI)<strong>

As I went over the data, I noticed that one particular console on Thessia had wound up finding a system to link up with that didn't fit any known extant species design methods or biology at all. Still, we managed to get the thing talking to us. And then we got the name of the species that made it.

_Prothean_

Immediately, we cross-referenced the name with everything we 'knew' about that name already, comparing it to what we found in the database AKA beacon.

_Protheans lived ~50,000 years ago, before disappearing._

**Cause of disappearance: wiped out by other species, designate: Reapers**

_Protheans built the Relays and Citadel_

**False: Relays and Citadel are components in a trap built by the Reapers, Protheans had only barely managed to crack the Relay's method of operation**

I blanched to some degree, and continued, looking up these 'Reapers'.

**Reapers: a massive fleet with absurd mastery of Mass Effect technology, More Reapers are produced by reducing organic races to Bio-Paste in a 50,000 year harvesting cycle. Reapers are extremely durable, requiring a kinetic penetrator equal to at least [0.8 teratons] to penetrate the armor of and heavily compartmentalized. Reaper weaponry and engines are mostly similar to conventional Mass Effect technology, but 5 orders of magnitude better. The most dangerous thing about Reapers however is the ability to subvert lesser minds to their will, organic or otherwise, without anyone noticing until too late. Each Reaper has a brain [100 meters] in diameter working at the [Bremermann limit].  
><strong>

My thought process immediately went through several stages, which could be summed up as 'hahaha what', 'OH F*** THEY'RE SERIOUS', and 'We're all going to die' before settling on 'Now how do we kill these things?'.

**=Timeskip: 69 hours=**

There was no question about it, we _needed _to tell the galaxy. There was however the little problem of getting them to believe us. It was then that I had an epiphany. I said to my colleagues "You know, there's a factor in most species' history where when someone raises a big stink over suppressing a piece of information, the more people are interested in it. If we orchestrated this to look like a leak, and prodded the various alien intelligence agencies into trying to suppress it, that might just work."

* * *

><p><strong>Council Tower (POV: Tevos)<strong>

I had a headache. This was due to a combination of factors. First there was the revelation that someone had apparently orchestrated intelligence leaks within most of the Council's intelligence agencies, meaning everyone's secrets besides those of the ASB were now in the public domain, which me and the other councilors thought was mighty suspicious, but we couldn't prove anything. Then there was the fact that to get over it last night I'd gotten incredibly drunk, leading to a hangover. And the final factor was the Batarian Ambassador being loud at me.

Why was the Batarian Ambassador being loud at me? That was apparently because someone had gone and taken all their slaves away, but did he have to be so _loud_ about it? I took the opportunity to excuse myself, and drank a lot of water before going back to bed.

* * *

><p><strong>Seraph (POV: yes)<strong>

As the latest ship arrived, I looked over the latest batch of passengers. Most of them were uninteresting, but a few caught my attention, including one very specific Turian. As I looked over Saren's profile, I noted that his therapist had put him down as 'adrift', 'potentially suicidal', 'angry at the universe', and 'desperately searching for meaning'. I could help with this. I had to fix this, if I didn't I'd be betraying the name I'd chosen for myself's implications.

I directed one of my more human-like bodies (resembling a somewhat short green-eyed redhead with wavy hair) to intercept him while he was aboard the orbivator. I opened the conversation with "Hello, I'm Seraph. I'd kind of like to get to know you." followed by a simulated blush. An angel does not lie after all.

Predictably, he balked slightly before replying "By Seraph, are you just named that, or are you actually an avatar of the ludicrously powerful planet mind that oversees the world I'm visiting?"

I confirmed his suspicions by saying "The latter, I'm interested because of why you ultimately came here. Some come for the post-scarcity habitation. I provide for them, and subtly push for them to excel in their chosen field, but I'm ultimately not interested in them. Some come to spy, I misdirect them with trivial effort and send them home with what they _think_ is critical intelligence but is ultimately useless lies. You came because you were desperately seeking something to give your life some _meaning_ and thought that a change of perspective would help. That interests me."

Saren sighed, before replying "My brother, who I've known for my whole life just died. Without him, I just.. don't know what to do with myself."

I nodded, before saying "I have an idea that might help. You see, I practice a religion... or technically a philosophy known as NeoPhysicalism. It basically consists of following through on the idea that while the universe is ultimately a cruel, unforgiving place that just doesn't give a shit, the people in it don't have to be, and should really co-operate towards making sure no-one needs to suffer the injustices reality inflicts upon us mere mortals ever again. By any means necessary."

Saren perked up a bit and said "Yes, I think I can do that, are there any other steps?"

I slid slightly closer to him before saying "Yes, a big part of it is that you don't get to discriminate based on species, gender, organic/synthetic, what their predecessors did, or any other criteria like that. The only way you're allowed to judge people is by their actions."

Saren **[Smile-equivalent gesture]**ed. I took the opportunity to give him a nice, long hug. It seemed like he needed it. On a more practical note, it kept him from blowing his brains out, which his body language indicated he might be about to do.


	7. Chapter 7

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note: **So far, everything's been going pretty well for the ASB, with them keeping the Council off-balance and generally taking advantage of First Contact as best they can. This is when the Council gets their act together.

Procrastination bit me in the butt again...

* * *

><p><strong>Council Tower (POV: Tevos)<strong>

As I awoke from the nap I had used to recover from my partially self-inflicted headache, I considered the ultimate root cause. Namely the ASB. Their activities had to stop, but using force would just trigger the Mutually Assured Destruction scenario they'd proved they could do. In addition we only knew the location of ONE of their systems with any degree of certainty, with them doubtless having seeded enclaves all over the galaxy. There had to be an option we hadn't considered, some advantage we had over them. Finally, one occurred to me, namely long-distance FTL. While warp certainly got up to top speed quicker than Mass Effect FTL, ME FTL had the great advantage of a higher top speed once it got going. This opened up destinations that warp simply wasn't very practical to go to.

One such destination was a satellite galaxy, which if I recalled correctly the ASB had named the Large Magellanic Cloud. Add to that the fact that we'd managed to (with much difficulty) figure out the basics of WormComm technology from those 'entertainment media consoles' the ASB had given to us and we could easily maintain contact with such a colony. With a bit of Mass Effect cheating to reduce the energy cost, we could possibly establish a gateway for ships to travel through. Mining an entire satellite galaxy for Element Zero would greatly reduce our supply limitations, in addition to granting assets the ASB would at the very least need a substantial amount of time to reach. By my calculations, an eezo drive propelled craft could reach the Large Magellanic Cloud in just over 40 days, while a warp driven vehicle would require most of a year before it arrived. This project was something that could _work_.

* * *

><p><strong>Location Classified, 18 months later (POV: A Salarian named Relt)<strong>

As we prepared to fire up the Gate, I blanched a bit internally. Yes, we had managed to make a device that could maintain a doorway sized portal stable enough for someone to walk through 7 months ago (currently being used to secretly link Thessia and Sur'Kesh), but there was a big difference between that and a portal 2.5 kilometers in diameter. Still, everything checked out.

I had managed to acquire the privilege of a seat in the main control center (which was 2 light weeks out and connected by a reverse-engineered WormComm). As the opening sequence started, I watched the energy flow readouts carefully. This was not our first, or second, or third attempt at producing a wormhole this large. All three previous attempts had however exploded violently in a horrendous tangle of distorted space-time and short-lived Event Horizons, the first when we turned it on, and the second and third when we tried to move it via FTL. This meant a certain degree of wariness was warranted. This was why we had the Gate out in the system's Oort Cloud, while the control station was in this star's goldilocks zone.

**Initial power source/engine activation successful. Violation of thermodynamics achieved.**

I released a breath I didn't even know I had been holding, as the power systems and engines that would both sustain the link and enable the massive construct to move came to life. That part was fairly routine however, with literally thousands of ships using the same process at a time in this galaxy alone. Now came the hard parts.

**Establishing initial singularity. Successful.**

This was another crucial step, as a microscopic black hole was squished into existence and kept from evaporating in a puff of Hawking radiation by a process we still weren't quite sure on the mechanics of.

**Initiating rotation, shift to Ring Singularity. Successful.**

And here, the miniature black hole was spun into a ring, forcing a hole in reality open. But going through it wouldn't lead to translocation until the next step.

**Quantum photocopying Ring Singularity. Successful.**

An apparent impossibility, splitting a singularity. But this machinery achieved it with contemptuous ease. This resulted in two apparently identical Ring Singulartities. And whatever went in one came out the other. In addition, the Event Horizon only sheathed within a micrometer of the singularity ring itself, allowing for vessels to traverse the gateway anywhere within its 2.5 kilometer diameter, seamlessly. While the ASB ultimately knew more about wormhole dynamics than I ever would, they simply couldn't get the energy requirements for a Gate low enough without eezo. And if they were mining and refining eezo, we still likely wouldn't know about it.

and, with the wormhole established, came the true moment of truth.

**Gate End 1 going to FTL. Successful.  
>Large Magellanic Cloud or Bust.<strong>


	8. Chapter 8

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note:** The Reapers are probably going to show up around chapter 12. But that is neither here or now. At the moment, the ASB and Council are busy arming up. In the ASB's case it's intended to put the hurt on the Reapers. The Council just wants deterrent so the 'crazy AI lovers' don't try something. To sum it up, the ASB is too busy with more important stuff to shoot at the Council. However, the Council doesn't know that and just sees the ASB making a huge military buildup. Also a bit of non-codex (because this is something the Council doesn't know about.)

Also, you may or may not have noticed, but I am really horrendously **bad** at characterization (damn high-functioning Autism screws with my ability to handle social stuff, at the very least I got awesome math skills out of the deal). Does anyone feel like helping?

* * *

><p><strong>ASB gate network<br>**

The Gate network is a project initiated by Bump to get around the fact that most ASB ships are simply too large to use the Relays, and not fast enough at Warp to match a Reaper's strategic speed. It uses wormhole links at specific 'hub' areas containing multiple wormhole links to connect the galaxy. The Gate network is arranged around the galactic core in what can roughly be considered a multi-layered 'spiderweb' formation. This formation is designed such that while in the Milky Way galaxy a ship is never more than 250 light years from a gate hub, meaning that someone in the know can get to _any_ location in the galaxy in a day at most.

Each gate has a traversable diameter of 80 kilometers to allow some of the larger ship classes through, possibly multiple ships at once. Worth noting is that these gates require a quite ludicrous amount of element zero to construct. This has led to large-scale eezo-mining being deployed at hundreds of neutron stars, as those are the only locations enough eezo can be practically mined from for gate construction. This has led to a project to create synthetic eezo.

The co-ordinate system of the Gate network is simple. First, state the rotation around the galactic plane in degrees (to 3 decimal places), then the distance from the core, and finally the "up/down" co-ordinates within the galactic plane. Each Gate hub can 'dial' any other gate hub, thanks to the WormComm network being able to move the microscopic paired ring singularities involved before they get inflated to a usable degree, in addition to just being an information transfer system. Each Gate hub is equipped with 5 gates in case of heavy traffic.

Notable locations on the Gate Network include

-ASB home sphere (0 degrees, core distance ~22,500 light years, vertical 800 light years)

-Citadel staging point (58.129 degrees, core distance ~21,750 light years, vertical 450 light years)

-Sur'Kesh staging point (29.856 degrees, core distance ~17,500 light years, vertical 125 light years)

-Palaven staging point (33.121 degrees, core distance ~35,000 light years, vertical 823 light years)

-Thessia staging point (68.534 degrees, core distance ~31,250 light years, vertical 1006 light years)

* * *

><p><strong>ASB gate network (co-ordinates 17.896 degrees, core distance 21,000 light years) (POV: <strong>**Captain** **Yelena Val Emerson of the ASBCSV [Combat Space Vehicle] _Squid Remover_)**

One of the most problematic things about having to deal with the Reapers is that we didn't really have any way of detecting them at the galactic scale. This meant that we wouldn't be able to see them until they were already in our systems and wrecking our stuff. Strictly speaking, yes we could just fill the galaxy with WormComm equipped sensor probes for effectively FTL sensing, but that was intensely impractical at best. Making a radar-like active sensor that functioned using gravity waves was, strictly speaking, possible, but the signals were so faint that with our current level of technology we'd be better off just using radar. Therefore, something entirely different was being attempted.

Element zero made accelerating an object to near the speed of light (or just adjusting the speed of light) almost trivially easy. When something was moving close to the speed of light, or just sitting there with enough mass increase, time dilation occurred. When time dilation happened between one end of a wormhole and the other, going through it would lead to shifting one's location in time as well as space. Therefore a wormhole could easily be converted into a time machine. And that, integrated with our sensor systems and computers was what I'd been assigned to test.

The idea was simple, If we knew where an opponent would be before they got there, we could arrange for them to run into a Warp missile roughly head-on. And even better, this system would allow entire regions light-months wide to be secured. Ultimately, we were arranging for genuine precognition to become one of our capabilities, along with practically infinite processing power. The initial test was simple, a missile equipped with a mass effect drive would be launched to pass within 1 kilometer of the _Squid Remover_, passing at maximum speed of 3,000,000 c.

We were also limited to 1 remote sensor probe. All systems were active, chronoputer included, and we were now waiting for the FTL missile to be inbound.

_**-rewind-**_

Light wake detected 1 km galactic down of present location, determining vector.

_**-rewind-**_

Vector confirmed as possibility 1.

**_-rewind-_**

Firing warp missile at inbound munition. Contact failed.

**_-rewind-_**

Firing warp missile in head-on collision trajectory with inbound munition. Contact successful. Inbound munition destroyed.

**_-timeline kept-_**

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><p><strong>Motherlode System, Large Magellanic Cloud (POV: A Turian mining engineer named Decilio Paetnius)<strong>

I was currently in shaft 89 of the North Pole Quarry, or at least the remote drone I was operating was. You see, the Motherlode System was a neutron star, with the radiation to go with. The only reason we were here at the moment was because apparently there had been a gas giant in _just_ the right place that when the star blew up it had left a lump of 68% pure eezo a bit over 2,000 km in diameter. Yes, that is absurdly unlikely. No, that wouldn't stop us from exploiting it.

Currently, I was at the processing station 2 light-weeks out. Our cargo shuttles could carry up to 10,000 cubic meters of eezo ore (10 cubes, each 10 meters on a side), and we had hundreds of the things coming and going weekly, meaning that progress was going extremely quickly. Current estimates were that our activities where driving the cost of eezo back in the **[Milky Way Galaxy]** to under a tenth of it's previous cost. This basically meant that for the time being at least eezo scarcity just wasn't an issue any more. That was leading to a lot of big ships being built, along with an economic boom that was mostly going towards Research and Development. The Salarians at the very least had developed a lifespan extension treatment, The Turian Hierarchy was experimenting with some exciting new weapons along with an interesting device to get around thermal shock. Even the mostly stagnant Asari were getting in on the act, though they weren't telling anyone what they were working on.

Anyway, I came off my shift. That meant it was time for me to go have a few hours of R&R before I went to sleep for tonight.


	9. A slice of life

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note: **In this chapter, Turians. They don't blend. And the Author may be lying.

* * *

><p><strong>Motherlode System, Large Magellanic Cloud (POV: Decilio Paetnius)<strong>

As my most recent shift ended, I got up from my console in the control center. The room was Spartan in its aesthetics, with a few rugged control consoles for the mining drones, some chairs, and lighting, but that was about it. As I left, my replacement for the next shift (An Asari named Panarsa) passed by. She made some wisecrack as we passed, but I didn't pay any attention to what it was. I had more important things on my mind, namely food, with a stop by the medical office for my checkup on the way there.

I passed through a more 'lived in' area of the station on my way there, one of its prominent features was a large elaborate mural of an Elcor, a Quarian, and an Asari having a threesome. I resolved to apply a fresh coat of paint remover later today. Getting to the medical office, I immediately got into a conversation with my physician, a Salarian named Mordin. I opened up the conversation with "I'm here for my checkup, lets get this over with."

Mordin responded with "Yes. Efficiency is optimal."

With my checkup being over in about 15 minutes, I made my way back towards the public food court. On the way there I passed that accursed mural again, which only strengthened my resolve to remove it. Arriving at the food court, I ordered a bowl of crispy, spicy noodles, just the way I liked them. Namely, without any extra frilly garnishes. As I sat down to eat, another of my colleagues from the last shift (a Drell named Odrulot), sat down across from me. I opened the conversation.

"I presume you've seen the mural in sector 19."

"Yes, and it livens up the place quite nicely in my opinion."

"That is firmly in the realm of opinion. That mural is an affront to the professional nature of this station."

"Why do you hate art so much?"

"It isn't so much the art itself I have a problem with as where the 'artist' chose to put it. If it were in the recreation center I wouldn't have so much of a problem because I never go there anyway, but making it right next to main hydroponics is just counterproductive."

"Ah, you _really_ need to lighten up."

"But."

"No buts, the Recreation Center is there so we don't all go stir crazy, and you are going to use it if I have to drag you there kicking and screaming."

"At least allow me to finish eating."

"Certainly!"

With that I unceremoniously finished eating my meal in relative peace. When that was done, I got up, put my trash in the disposal, and went through the 'north' exit, hoping Odrulot had forgotten about that little 'appointment'. It was not to be, as my happy-go-lucky co-worker landed in the wall ahead of me in a biotic haze before stating "No can do, you're going to go have some fun whether you like it or not!"

As I was dragged through the halls of Motherlode Station, we passed by the abominable mural once more. When we got to the Recreation Center, with its 8 story high ceiling and various rides and attractions, Odrulot said "OK, now that we're here you can do just about anything you like."

My gaze passed 3 roller coasters, 2 waterslides, 6 other assorted thrill rides, 20 gaming parlors of various descriptions, and a gallery filled with pinball machines (the idea came from the ASB, but we didn't trust them after the console incident). Then I finally found my destination. Without hesitation I fearlessly wandered through the crowds. After the harrowing experience of getting here, I sat down on the bench, activated my omnitool, and started filing paperwork. Of course, that's when Odrulot had to butt in with "Hey, that is NOT recreation. Now get up, you're going to ride a roller coaster." I groaned and did so, if only because trying to overpower a clever biotic without mechanical assistance was an exercise in futility.

Odrulot continued with "Pick a roller coaster, any roller coaster!" There were 3 to pick from. First was the Ricochet, which had no inversions, but was incredibly violent in its ups, downs, and turns. I decided not to do that one. Next was the cylotron. It was faster, yet had slower turns. In addition it possessed an interesting spiral loop-the-loop, which entered at the edge and went around three times before exiting near the middle. I decided that I might as well go for that one, as the last option would likely lead to Odrulot dragging me off to the Ricochet.

Waiting in line took about 20 minutes. During this time I took the opportunity to do some paperwork, much to Odulot's consternation. Eventually, we reached the front of the line. I went for a seat in the front row, and sighed as the safety restraints lowered over my shoulders. Unlike some roller coasters, the Cyclotron immediately started on its lift hill instead of turning beforehand. As I got to the top, I looked out at the bright red track the majority of the coaster was constructed from. It had 4 ups and downs, a half loop, and the infamous spiral. We reached the top. There was a brief feeling of weightlessness as the first drop began. I was rushing towards the ground ohspiritswe'reallgoingtodie! Suddenly, there was a feeling of intense weight as the track turned upwards.

Reaching the top of the bump almost made me regurgitate, but I kept it down. We descended once more. Though it was still disconcerting, I managed to avoid a panic attack. It was at this point that we went into the banked turn which started the spiral. Contrary to what some might think, the spiral was only about 15 degrees from being level with the deck. Nevertheless, it still counts as an inversion, which was a particular sore point as the world started to spin. Then the inversion went to full upside down as we came to the half-loop that exited the spiral. In some ways it could theoretically be comparable to doing a back-flip, however as I have never done a back-flip I have no points of comparison. There was one more up, then a significantly lesser down, and the station brakes activated.

As I shakily got out of the roller coaster, Odrulot literally bounced up to me (biotics...) before saying "That was awesome!"

I replied with "No, it was not 'awesome'. It was in fact terrifying. Now I've got a mural to remove so get out of my way."

* * *

><p><strong>Arcturus Ring <strong>**(POV: Yelena Val Emerson)**

I currently had shore leave. I had decided to spend it at Arcturus. Yes, the Ring wasn't completed yet in terms of biotorus, but it still had an awesome view. After all, it's not every day you get to see a star being forcibly diminished from a red giant to a red dwarf, with excess matter being used to make 'storage Jupiters' or used as reaction mass to keep Arcturus from screaming straight out of the galactic plane. Oh, that old depleted core Arcturus had was also being replace with fresh hydrogen from its outer layers while those delicious heavy elements from the old core were being used for industry.

Currently I was at a VR establishment named Freak's, which had a rather interesting gimmick. Namely, each night they used a spinner loaded with various impossible (or at least impractical to implement normally) abilities. Whatever the spinner landed on, the patrons all had that ability forcibly activated, at least for the duration of their stay, though the form could be retained after leaving if the patrons left (at least in a VR environment). Tonight, Mr. Freak (a stage name if I ever saw one), gave the spinner his usual heavy heave.

_click__click__click__click__click__click__click__click__click__click__click__click__click__click__click__click  
><em>_click __click __click __click __click __click __click __click __click __click __click __click  
><em>_click. __click. __click. __click. __click. __click. __click. __click. __click. __click.  
><em>_click... __click... __click... __click... __click...  
><em>**_click._**_  
><em>

The spinner landed on 'Detachable', and I flt my neck loosening somewhat, as well as my wast and shoulders. Carefully, I ran my finger along my neck, until I found a groove. Carefully, I tried pulling. Nothing happened at first, but I eventually heard a 'pop' somewhat like a suction cup letting go. Gently lifting, I set my head in my lap and ruffled my hair. This is about when I decided on what I wanted to drink.

**=2 subjective hours, 18 simulated alcoholic beverages, and 1 sobriety reset code later=**

As my mind-state automatically reset to sobriety (Freak's was currently closing) I realized just what an absurd situation I was in. From what I could see, my head and left arm had been superglued to the table, my torso was currently completely undressed and atop one of the bar stools, with my shirt being draped over my left shoulder. And from what I could tell my right arm had been stuck to the ceiling. My legs were currently on a different bar stool, but thankfully I could still see them. Also, someone apparently decided to steal my breasts. Without much fanfare, I activated the routine to restore my avatar to a default state. Everything went back in the right places (shirt and breasts included). With that I took a step towards the exit, and my head promptly fell off my neck.

I quickly analyzed my code, and found that particular bit had been damaged. It was near enough important stuff about my personality that I didn't want to mess with it, and I had more important things to do anyway. It seemed an awful lot like I would be going headless for quite a while, at least as far as VR was concerned. Without much fanfare, I picked up my head, tucked it under my arm, and left Freak's. Good Riddance.


	10. Chapter 10

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note: **I'm reviving this. Mostly because that other project that made me go 'ooh, shiny!' died a slow and painful death.  
>In other news, this chapter involves Saren going back out into the galaxy after his stay onwith Seraph. Also, Yelena visits the Citadel. Guess which two people run into each other!

Just FYI: a 'light warp missile' AKA the one with a 4.3 teraton yield is about the size of a soda can. As you may imagine, these are VERY spammable.

* * *

><p><strong>The Citadel (POV: Yelena Val Emerson)(She isn't military at this point in time, and got another vacation)<strong>

I arrived in Citadel space. Normally this wouldn't be terribly unusual, but I'd felt like trolling the Councilites a bit. Therefore I wasn't aboard a ship as such, rather I'd just commissioned a gynoid body fitted with a warp drive and a gravity drive with a few gees of acceleration. While normally flying all the way to the Citadel all on my own would likely lead to almost terminal boredom, I'd just taken a shortcut via the Gate network. To be even more trollish, I'd had the body designed to be as hard to tell from an organic as possible with my given performance specifications.

On the aesthetic side, my current body was 167 centimeters tall, a redhead with a long ponytail, and sported B cups. In addition I had violet eyes, and freckles. This body was also fitted with a detachable head because I'd kind of gotten used to it in virtual space, and it was a surprisingly useful ability at times.

As I dropped out of warp roughly 3 light seconds out from the Citadel, I broadcast "This is ASB citizen Yelena Val Emerson requesting to approach at warp to 1,000 km." My request was granted after a few minutes. I warped in slowly, a mere 0.1 c. I'd arranged for my warp trajectory to take me significantly off to the side of the Citadel so that they wouldn't be concerned about me ramming them. Dropping out of warp I broadcast once more "If you don't mind I'd like to come aboard. Don't worry about finding a spot for me, I'll just land on the presidium."

The response I got was "What. You know what, this is above my pay grade. Permission to come aboard granted. " With landing permissions acquired, I initiated a constant-thrust trajectory at 3.5 gees that would put me within 1 kilometer of the Citadel. This took about 5.6 minutes, during which I shamelessly flirted with the traffic controller. From what I could tell of her responses, the Asari at the other end was somewhat flustered, not at all interested, and somewhat creeped out. Excellent. As I was setting down on the Presidium, I let loose a burst of maniacal laughter over the radio bands. This only intensified as those near my lading zone looked up to see what was apparently a baseline human just float into the citadel from space.

Of the approximately 325 people who watched me arrive, 34% did their culture's version of a face-palm, 20% fell over laughing, 6% did a spit take, and 40% just stared. Without further fanfare, I set down on the deck and walked away. I still attracted stares for about two blocks, but after that the attention I was getting died down. I honesty should have expected a C-SEC biotic to land directly in front of me, and 'politely request' that I present identification, among other such things.

A few minutes later, after filling out my paperwork (they let me do it digitally, that Asari looked so jealous) and finding out _just_ how big of a headache I'd given C-SEC (MWAHAHAHA!), I went on my merry way. Though strictly speaking this body barely had any mass intake requirements due to using Hawking Conversion for power, I had still requested a full digestive suite complete with taste buds. I'd also burned a whole 72 grams of mass on my way over for my warp drive alone. This roughly equated in organic terms to 'a bit peckish'.

Continuing to walk along the Presidium, I eventually came to one of the wards. I didn't know or care which one, But I went there anyway. After a bit of random sight-seeing via gravity drive (which attracted more stares, not that I minded), I decided to drop in on a restaurant, maybe a bar or some other place fun. Literally, that is.

Mentally identifying a number of possible candidates, I settled on one particular Nightclub known as Flux. I carefully positioned myself about 120 meters above the doorstep, and let myself drop.

Feeling the wind whipping through my hair was exhilarating. The simulated adrenaline rush this was giving me was pretty awesome as well. When I got within 30 meters of the ground I re-activated my gravity drive, And slowed to a stop just as I landed. I still touched down going pretty fast however.

I attracted yet more stares as I entered the building containing Flux, probably due to how I arrived. Flying around the inside of the place at about mach 0.3 (I was significantly above head height, so a collision was incredibly unlikely) was fun. It also attracted plenty of extra attention, especially given that I was using my hologram projectors to whip up a pair of angel wings.

after a few minutes of flying around, I eventually managed to find Flux, and hovered inside. I had by this point dismissed the wings. Without doing overly much in the way of compensating, I lazily hovered over to the bar, and simply lay down in midair, before ordering a drink.

It was at this point that I noticed I was floating next to where a Turian was sitting. Unlike most of the people in Flux, he wasn't paying me any particular extra attention. I pondered why this might be before asking "Hey, you aren't staring like anyone else, any particular reason?"

In response I received "I spent 6 years on Seraph. I'm desensitized to this particular brand of weirdness. Quite bluntly, I kind of wish I'd been allowed to _keep_ some of my more radical augmentations when I returned to Council space. I miss flying like that, even if the grav-nodes did feel weird when they were active."

I pitied him somewhat. My drink arrived, and I downed the Salarian-originated cocktail extremely quickly, before ordering some Horosk as a chaser. The Bartender looked at me like I was insane. I just explained it with "I got my digestive system overhauled so I can have Dextro stuff too." She shrugged, muttered something along the lines of 'your funeral', and poured the drink. After downing it, I hovered upstairs to try my had at a game of Quasar.

I was sorely disappointed to learn that the game didn't involve chucking matter into a miniature black hole to send a ludicrously powerful beam of energy shooting off in some random direction. That's exactly what a Quasar was! You just couldn't have a game named Quasar with no actual Quasars! That defeated the whole purpose of naming the game that if you were just going to betray the name like that!

Grumbling, I played a couple rounds. Through careful calculation I managed to profit off my gambling by _exactly_ 3 credits. It was while taking a peek at how the code of the machine worked that I noticed that some of my credits weren't going where they were supposed to. I resolved to figure out who was behind it later, though I still traced the signal to an establishment named the Emporium.

At this point, I was about ready to pack it in for the night. True, this body didn't exactly need sleep, but that was the only way to access the shared VR realm known to most of the ASB as the Dream. For a bit of extra messing with people, I decided to leave my head on the bedside table (with its own pillow) instead of keeping it on.

* * *

><p><strong>The Citadel (POV: Saren)<strong>

Ultimately, I had lied to Yelena. I was currently in a far more combat-specialized body, making allowances for needing to appear to be an organic. Beneath the skin I had flight systems an order of magnitude more powerful than hers and a rather terrifying weapon. Namely, I was equipped with millions of microscopic Warp Missiles, not much larger than an organic cell. Each one had a yield equivalent to 13.5 kilograms of TNT, and I could fire up to 200 per second from launchers near my eyes, which were disguised as tear ducts. On the defensive side I had 1.5 centimeters of Nanocarbide Composite Armor in addition to a prototype system to neutralize mass effect fields and swat incoming warp missiles. As an emergency backup, I had a plasma pistol mounted in each forearm, not that I was likely to find a valid target. I wasn't planning on using these anywhere near the Citadel, but I wasn't planning on staying here for long anyway.

My destination was Omega, one of the more horrible places in the known galaxy. When I got there, I would do my level best to make people's lives there better. I was actually remote-controlling this body at present, operating it from Seraph via WormComm. This meant that if the body got offed, I would still be alive.

Without further adieu, I went to sleep. In the morning, I showered and got dressed, preparing to go eat breakfast. It was at this point that Yelena walked by, head tucked under her arm. I wasn't quite sure why she was doing that, but the point was moot as she put her head back on as she walked by anyway. Groaning, I filled up my mass tanks on atmospheric gasses, before heading towards the tip of the Zakera Ward to catch my flight to Omega.


	11. Chapter 11

**IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!**

**Author's Note:**Remember my mention of how Eden Prime became Seraph in this timeline? Well, Seraph found a certain preserved Prothean. He's in for a rude awakening.

* * *

><p><strong>Seraph (POV: Javik)<strong>

As I awoke, I noted that my capsule had been moved. This was obvious given that it was currently on what seemed to be a balcony overlooking a rather large park. There was a table across the room from my current location, with two chairs. The left chair was currently occupied by what seemed to be a winged furless biped wearing a white body suit. Performing a quick tactical analysis, I determined that attacking this strange being would get me nowhere, and instead stated a greeting. I apologize for not saying what said greeting was, but it doesn't translate well into your language.

With that, the strange biped gestured to me, and then to the other chair at the table. Not seeing any other options besides jumping out the window that could be an artfully designed screen for all I knew, or trying to break down the door which could be who knows how thick and made of who knows what, I sat at the table.

**=timeskip of indeterminate length=**

Learning that the being in front of me was an avatar of a ludicrously hyper-intelligent planetary AI, and that she had converted 90% of the planet into computronium by mass was quite a shock. Absorbing what this 'ASB's technology base included also had some infuriating moments. I shall share the highlights below.

* * *

><p>"I'm not quite sure what to make of this pistol. I pull the trigger and whatever it's pointed at explodes, but there isn't really anything in there except a grip, the trigger, and an aiming system. There really shouldn't be room for any functional components to achieve this result."<p>

Seraph answered with "Ah, you seem to be operating under the misconception that what you're viewing is a conventional energy or kinetic weapon when it is in fact nothing of the sort. In fact it operates by firing microscopic superluminal projectiles, which are given a boost to get going by the fusion cell in the grip. These projectiles generate an event horizon in front of them, which accumulates matter while traveling. Eventually it gets to the point that the warp field can't handle the buildup and the whole thing explodes in a burst of Hawking radiation."

I sighed and simply nodded.

* * *

><p>"So, let me get this straight. You are working on synthetic element zero despite being perfectly capable of building warships that can murder Reapers in large numbers without a single atom of it. Dare I ask why?"<p>

"Logistics concerns. While warp drive is better for short trips, eezo FTL is faster over long distances. In addition it allows for the easy violation of thermodynamics, which could easily be used to operate entirely ex nihilo. This also can easily eliminate our fuel concerns. We also require absolutely immense amounts of eezo to construct the Gate network, and we are starting to deplete our currently known sources."

"Those are all logical arguments for its use. Yet I feel it somehow cheapens the arrangement, despite your attempts to circumveent the limits using Element Zero places on you."

"That's a valid point of view. Also, we've managed to synthesize eezo already, we just haven't managed to make the process industrially viable. Fortunately, we should have it figured out to that degree in under 5 years."

For this purpose, I appropriated the old human gesture known as a face-palm.

* * *

><p>"On the note of not using Element Zero for much, would you care to explain how this reactionless 'gravity' drive that is so ubiquitous in the ASB works?"<p>

"Strictly speaking, it isn't reactionless in the slightest."

"I'm fairly certain that 'energy in, thrust out, no reaction mass required' counts as reactionless."

"That it does, but that isn't what's going on in the slightest."

"Would you please elaborate?"

"Not to the extent you're hoping. All I'm allowed to say is that it works using neutrinos, it's only called a 'gravity' drive to confuse the aliens, and the rest is classified."

"That is completely unhelpful."

"**_I. Know_**_**. That. Already. It. Is. Classified.**_"

"I'll stop asking then."

* * *

><p>"I'm somewhat curious as to how much processing power you actually possess, given that you're apparently operating at the point where it's almost literally impossible to improve your computing mediums."<p>

"Well, the first thing you need to know is that the figure of being able to fit a human-level mind into a pack of cards is mostly a lie."

"Please elaborate."

"Our computronium can run about 10^50 mathematical operations per second per kilogram. This figure drops to 10^48 if we're including the self maintenance systems, which we usually do."

"Understood."

"It takes roughly 10^37 mathematical operations per second to simulate a human-level mind in real time, though this figure increases to 10^40 mathematical operations per second once encryption, other security, and time compression are factored in."

"Doesn't this mean someone's security is smarter than they are?"

"Yes."

"So, back to the previous topic?"

"Certainly, the average ASB citizen only takes up about 10 milligrams of computronium, though if we leave out all the self-maintenance, time compression, and security we could theoretically fit someone into a tenth of a nanogram of computronium."

"So why the 'pack of cards' figure?"

"Almost all of that standard is for armoring and engines so that if their bigger body gets wrecked they can eject and escape back to a safe location. Military versions are also equipped with those micro warp missiles I showed you earlier."

"Ah. Curiously, what is my current status in the ASB?"

"Legally speaking, not much. Only I really know about you at the moment, though that's likely to change the millisecond you get out of this simulation."

"This is a simulation?"

"Yes, yes it is."

"And that brings up another question-"

"Sorry to interrupt, but you had quite severe cellular degeneration. I didn't know how to fix it given that you're the only Prothean I've ever had to provide medical care for, so I had to do an upload. Welcome to being an infomorph, Javik."


End file.
